Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing by Roger Rosenblatt

I went to my local library two Wednesdays ago to get a replacement library card. And picked up six books while I was there (five nonfiction  about the craft of writing and one J. D. Robb novel).

So of course many deadlines from within and without have surfaced to keep me from reading them before the two-week return date.

Still, I have managed a workable pace.

The first (and shortest at 155 pages) of them was the book mentioned in this post title. Rosenblatt has a wonderful sense of humor. He teaches how learning to write essays, short stories and poems helps us to write novels as well as enhancing each of the aforementioned written forms.

Out of my four double-sided college-ruled pages of notes, here are some highlights:

• Eventually, they will discover that their writing validates their lives (p. 42).
• Subject matter determines voice (p. 58).
• We write to change the world (p. 58).
• Your ending lies within your beginning (p. 61).
• You're Virgil, not Dante. It's their adventure (p. 115).
• [Authors are] observers of the world (p. 129).
• ...an evolutionary tending on the part of the species to be useful (per Lewis Thomas) (pp. 148, 149).

I recommend this book for authors new or established.

Read something fun or enlightening or both today!

Denise Barker, author + blogger + copy editor

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Do You Have WIPs or a Backlist?

"Backlist" refers to older traditional published works that are still available, not new releases (per Web11, but paraphrased in my own words). In this post, however, I'm using it more for an Indie's stockpile of stories not yet published.

For me, as of March 25, 2013, I had twelve WIPs (works in progress). In my mind, each was designated as a novel that I would finish when I had "free time." I had printed them all out earlier this year as a backup procedure mostly, but then I three-hole punched them, arranged each in its own notebook, noting the number of pages and the WC (word count) along with its working title on the spine.

Thereafter I ordered them per increasing WC. The shortest was twenty-five DS (double-spaced) pages, with the second longest my category of 50K and 285 DS pages (my 2011 NaNo project) and the longest being my mainstream of 92K WC and 432 DS pages.

Then it hit me. Those two finished first draft projects are designated by their length: category and mainstream. What if my shortest stories are actually that? Short stories.

As an Indie, there is nothing to stop me—OR YOU—from uploading a short story now and later turning it into a full-length novel if it tempts me/you so.

So that is what I have been doing. From 03.19 to 03.26, I spent forty-five hours finalizing my first three short stories (the shortest of my WIPs) and uploaded my first collection of them.

Now my WIPs total nine.

Beginning 03.28, I started working on my second collection of SSs (short stories). Yesterday, I reviewed the first one, found another notebook further down my stack that is actually more of this one but under another name (which brings my WIP count down to eight). Went through both the original story and its addenda, have a handle on what I need to accomplish to merge the two.

Today, I read through the next WIP. It needs more work to have a beginning, middle and end. But my subconscious mind knows to deal with that while I'm doing other things.

The last SS for this second collection, I plan to look over later today.

I've already prepared the cover for this one, and the front/back matter. My first collection had a total of 125 DS pp. This next one will incorporate 142 DS pp (as they currently stand; that page count may increase as I add stuff in, take stuff out).

The next three projects down the list (with 98, 140 and 162 DS pp, respectively, as is) may each be released as stand-alone novellas.

If it takes me forty-five hours for each 125-page segment (the length of the first collection and the time it took for that e-book compilation), then I need 9.5 weeks to finalize my WIPs.

Remember, I'm ALL INDIE. So that forty-five hours, while not including the original creation time involved for any of these writings, does count copyediting, proofreading, a "reader" read-through, design/production work, cover art work, front/back pages and actual uploading onto my three main platforms (Amazon, B&N and Kobo).

I am so looking forward to having all my WIPs moved over into the "completed" column.

Denise Barker, author + blogger + copy editor

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

Milestones in My Life As an Author

First but not acted upon, or even thought of AS a milestone, was my mystery short story, a homework requirement for a junior high English class.  (It wasn’t called middle school back then!)  My teacher singled out my work as an honorable mention in front of the whole class.  The only one, too.  I thought, yeah.  And moved on.  I didn’t even save a copy of it.  Where would my writing career be today if I had taken the gift I had from the beginning of my life and started working on developing it and marketing it right away?  Well, I’d be further along.  Still no reason not to continue on now. 

This one event proves how dismissive we are about our unique skills and talents.  Don’t do that with yours.

However, I am not sure my writing career would have done too well back then, before the advent of the Indie-publishing avalanche we are in now.  Timing.  My time seems to be 2011 and into the future.  I am one happy woman to participate in, to belong to, this inventive and creative amalgamation of authors who have additional freedoms to invoke.

In my twenties, in the interim between that first and the upcoming second milestone, I wrote some short stories (or more correctly, I wrote stories that stopped at page twenty-five, not ended, but stopped)—none of which I saved apparently, ARGH!—and I was also reading like crazy.  Couldn’t get my fill of other peoples’ books.  But I often had the response to these stories, “I could do that too” or “I could do that better” or even more amazing and hypnotic, "I don't want the story to end yet.  I want to live in it.  I want to be surrounded by these people and call them friends."  I yearn to write those kind of books.

Second milestone was when I finished a short story and submitted it to a contest.  My one and only contest submission.  I did not win.  Still, I finished a story.  Do you know how many people wish to write a story and never do?  It may be the number one career goal out there (per one goals coach whose uplifting emails I receive daily).  I wish I had written down the exact date of that contest.  I may have it somewhere.  My best guess is March 1997.

Third milestone for me was finishing a novel-length book in NaNoMo 2009.

Fourth milestone was finishing a second novel.  That feat erased the fleeting worry that I was just a one-book wonder.

Fifth milestone was uploading my two nonfiction books to Amazon on March 27, 2011.

Sixth was uploading both nonfiction books to Barnes & Noble on April 27, 2011.

Seventh was receiving my first royalty check on May 27, 2011.

I am working on my eighth . . . .

You should be working on yours as well.  Time passes whether you reach for your goals or not.  The difference is, just during the first six months of this year, I already have accomplished three milestones.  How fantastic is that?  By the end of 2011, I hope to add a few more. 

Join me.